


The Law Laid Down

by sage_theory (papersage)



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-02
Updated: 2010-03-02
Packaged: 2017-10-07 16:11:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papersage/pseuds/sage_theory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are some promises they can keep. Set immediately after <i>Unfinished Business</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Law Laid Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mcshepylove](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=mcshepylove).



_"I twisted you under and under to break you  
I just couldn't breathe with your throne on my chest  
All night all I hear's your heart...how come?"_  
\- Neko Case  
"Furnace Room Lullaby"

  
Dee's got nothing but scorn for him while she stares at his bruises and it's clear to both of them that knows.

But still, Lee takes her hand and says, "I married _you_."

It's enough for the moment, and Dee continues patching him up. That night she sleeps soundly enough, but Lee lies awake and can't quit pressing his bruises. It's like feeling Kara over and over. The sore jolts of pain through his jaw, his knuckles all like buttons that he presses to make her appear in his mind.

It's hardly pain at all.

Given the twin bruises and cuts that Kara wears, the ones that mirror his own, there's nobody who can say either one of them won. When they're in the same room together, the story tells itself. Not that everyone from the nuggets up to Colonel Tigh hasn't already rehashed the tale. There was a time when he knew better than this, knew better than letting his private issues air in public.

Kara's catching flack for it, too. Though, she never knew better. Or never cared enough.

Cat whistles at her, "Like the makeup, Starbuck. I heard you were cryin' like a little girl last night in two rounds. I shoulda thrown my tags in."

Kara smirks a hard, wicked smirk. The kind that she comes back with when a bunch of Cylons are just debris floating around in space.

"Come up here and take a shot, if you think you're as strong as Apollo."

She takes a cocky stance with hand halfway between her hip and the small of her back. She raises her chin, waits for Cat's response.

"Wouldn't be worth it," Cat replies, but it's barely a face saver. Round one to Kara, as always. She always wins the jump ball, always has the faster, harder, fiercer first step. If you're going to beat her, it's in the long game. In the short game, she owns you. It makes her a great pilot, but it's hard to deal with when you're not fighting.

The depth of the compliment, however, is not lost on Lee. That's the closest that Kara will ever come to admitting anyone is a superior officer. Or a superior anything. Which is the moment Lee knows that they are both so far beyond frakked, and it makes him panic for a moment in a surrounded-by-toasters-without-a-weapon kind of way.

He goes through the briefing, endures the smirks and whistles while he doles out assignments, explains what barely needs explain to the people in front of him. He avoids staring at Kara, and instead picks the back of an empty seat to stare at. But even when he doesn't look at her, she's all he can see. And it's hard to remember that other people are there, hard to make them stay. Bruises throb, cuts sting, and it's like her siren song to him. Come and get some more.

Oh, they are so frakked.

Frakked is the best and worst word for it when Lee has Kara bent over a table and her nails are scratching across the metal and he can see himself slipping in and out, inside of her because gods she is so slick right now and soft and it come so easy to do so.

"Oh, gods, frak, yes," Kara's calling out and Lee knows he's leaving even more bruises by how hard he's holding her hips down, maybe even some bruises inside her because he is _not_ being gentle. He drives home like a missile with each thrust. This is not making love, this isn't even sex. It's a pure, hard, wild frakking.

And the fact that Kara is letting him do this, letting him frak her face down, bent over, like she belongs to him is the way that she's telling him so many things. It's a shame they can't even have conversations anymore. They only understand blood and fluids and frakking and pain now. If it's ferocity she understands, it's ferocity he's got.

He shouted out into the empty, treacherous New Caprican air for her, to show that he loved her in a way that would break him before he let go it. He screamed and wanted all the world to know - Dee and his father and maybe even Zach's ghost if it somehow followed them out here into space.

And now, in front of him, she bows down. Starbuck, who bows to no one and nothing. Bright, fierce Kara and she'll let him. She's letting him, begging him, spurring him on. This is her version of that scream. Her brutal, body jarring scream that Lee can feel. Kara is letting him. Not because she has to, not because she even needs to. But because she can. She doesn't care what damage it does, she wants him all the way.

For a moment, Lee flashes to seeing Starbuck in various cockpits - grimacing and grunting. The way she'll go into half-crazy tailspins and howl. Wilder than anything.

Here she is, bent for him and his name is coming out of her mouth in gasps. She's saying I'm yours yours yours.

It's the kind of vow people wish they could make but can't. He pulls her up a little with a hard tug, hands now around her waist and he's free to bury his face in her shoulder and bite. He's never done this before, but it feels right to have teeth in her flesh, to know it will leave a mark. She gasps, groans, half-laughs at the shock of what must be pain and pleasure. She reaches back to him, searching out for his arm to hold onto it, arching so deliciously, pushing back to him. But in her grasps is not a nail-gouging hold, but something gentle. Like holding hands.

Lee realizes they've never held hands before. He slides his arm down and interlaces their fingers, though it's in a bit of a weird position and he doesn't quit biting or pushing himself to the hilt inside her.

It's possibly sacrilegious to think that this act is the first true thing they've said to the gods. That they're actually taking vows in the middle of frakking, but maybe they are.

Kara belongs to him now and he belonged to her all along and even when they try to throw each other away, they can't and won't. They can make other promises and break them, they can frak other people and even marry them.

But it's 'til death from here on out and the gods can't break this if they tried.


End file.
